86 THE MAMMALS OF ETHIOPIAN AFRICA 



would be out of place in the present work, and only a few will be mentioned. 



The typical representative of the species is the West African bushbuck, in which 



both males and females are bright rufous, with full striping and spotting. In 



contrast to this is the small Abyssinian race (T. s. clecula) in which the general 



colour is yellowish, with but faint traces of stripes and spots, the crest down the 



back being black. The Cape bushbuck (T. s. sylvalicus), again, is typically dark 



brown in the male, with only a few indistinct white spots on the shoulders and 



haunches ; the females being reddish brown, with spots on the hind-quarters, and 



sometimes also on the shoulders. Bushbuck, as their name implies, are seldom 



found at any distance from wooded districts, where they generally go about in 



pairs. Being nocturnal and wary, they are often difficult to kill, except by driving 



out of covert, as is practised at the Cape. 



Very different from the bushbucks and their relatives are the 

 Oryx. . 



medium-sized desert antelopes collectively known by the name of 



oryx. Both sexes carry long, straight, or scimitar-shaped horns, rising nearly in the 



plane of the face ; the long tail tends to be bushy in its lower half, and the neck is 



maned. The general body-colour is usually some shade of fawn with blackish 



markings ; but in the North African white oryx and the beatrix of Syria and 



Arabia, which are referred to in earlier chapters of this book, the ground-colour 



is whitish, with chestnut patches, as indeed is mentioned in the preceding chapter. 



In South Africa the group is represented by the well-known gemsbuck {Oryx 

 gazella), which is still fairly numerous in the Kalahari, especially in Damaraland, 

 and ranges northward so far as the desert extends into Angola. The long, straight 

 horns are ringed for about half their length ; the whitish face has three blackish 

 streaks, two of which pass through the eyes, while all three stop short above the 

 muzzle, where they are connected b}^ a transverse band, thus suggesting the 

 appearance of a headstall. Down the middle line of the throat runs another 

 dark stripe, developed into a tuft on the chest, and below this dividing and con- 

 tinuing on each flank to separate the fawn of the back from the white of the under- 

 parts. A gemsbuck bull stands from 45 to 48 inches at the shoulder, and the 

 head and body measure over 10 feet in length, to which must be added another 

 27 inches for the tail. Horns average about a yard in length, but in some 

 instances about equal the shoulder-height. Gemsbuck are essentially desert 

 antelopes, and appear to a great extent independent of water, obtaining in 

 the Kalahari such fluid as they require from water-melons and bulbs, the latter 

 of which they dig out with their hoofs. 



The beisa or true oryx (0. beisa), which is typically a native of Somaliland, 

 Abyssinia, and the coast of the Red Sea, differs from the gemsbuck by the dark 

 markings on the face being disconnected at their lower ends, the absence of a 

 throat-tuft and of dark markings on the hind-quarters, and the shorter horns. 

 Forty inches, and an inch less in the female, is about the maximum length for 

 beisa horns. In East Africa the species is represented by the fringe-eared beisa 

 (0. b. callotis), so called from the presence of tufts of long hair on the tips of 

 the ears. 



The oryx inhabiting the Laikipia Plateau, of British East Africa, which in 

 many respects connects the Abyssinian and Somali beisa with the fringe-eared 



